The vaping industry takes a hit

Even though it may feel like there’s a Juul ad around every corner, and the kids are puffing up their dragon-energy-flavored smoke juice on the reg, vaping might actually be on the way out. A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Iowa and Guangzhou Medical University found that regular e-cigarette use amongst adults has experienced a serious decrease over the years.

Contrary to basically every “shocking” report from the FDA, the study found that habitual or “current” e-cigarette use among adults dropped significantly from 2014 to 2016. “These trends may suggest that some individuals are trying but not continuing use of e-cigarettes,” wrote the researchers, “but further investigation with individual longitudinal data on use of both e-cigarettes and other nicotine products is needed.”

Similar results were noted in 2016 among teens, who, despite being the subject of many a vape-centric thinkpiece, seem to be getting over vaping: “[T]he National Youth Tobacco Survey reported that the prevalence of current e-cigarette use among US middle and high school students declined for the first time in 2016, after a continuous increase from 2011 to 2015.” 2016 is, of course, about a century ago in trends – maybe the vaping pace has since picked up again – but this wouldn’t be the first time the media was late to a zeitgeist.

Finally, scientific evidence vaping isn’t cool

While the study did find that there was a significant increase in adult e-cigarette use between 2014 and 2016, this wasn’t daily or even semi-habitual use, but ever use. Meaning, most adults copped to taking at least one hit of an e-cigarette once during the two year period, which is honestly pretty reasonable. I mean, who wouldn’t at least try and reenact their favorite vape vine, or attempt to blow some Certifiably Mad Cloudz at least once?